Gilbert: The Halifax Disaster

(Host) This time of year, the sight of truckloads of Christmas trees on
the highway headed south, remind commentator and Vermont Humanities
Council executive director Peter Gilbert of the story of Boston's
Christmas tree. It goes back exactly ninety-five years to Halifax, Nova
Scotia and the first World War. Here's Peter Gilbert with that powerful
story.

(Gilbert) On December 6, 1917, the SS Mont-Blanc, a
French cargo ship loaded with explosives, collided with a Norwegian ship
in Halifax Harbor. Within ten minutes, the Mont-Blanc was ablaze, and
twenty-five minutes later, the ship exploded. The blast leveled Halifax,
killed 2,000 people, injured 6,000 more, damaged buildings ten miles
away, and shook buildings eighty miles away. The explosion was felt and
heard more than 200 miles away, and caused a tsunami in the harbor that
contributed to the death toll and the damage. The explosion remains the
world's largest man-made accidental explosion; later, J. Robert
Oppenheimer studied it to predict the effects of the atomic bomb.

Before
World War I, ships carrying dangerous cargo weren't allowed into
Halifax harbor, but because of concerns about German submarine attacks,
the policy was changed so they could be protected by anti-submarine nets
and the royal navy.

Acts of heroism abounded. A tug boat, the
Stella Maris, jettisoned the barges it was towing and raced to the
Mont-Blanc. The crew sprayed the burning ship with their fire hose and
were beginning to tow it away from the city when it exploded. Amazingly,
five of the tug boat's crew of twenty-four survived the blast.

When
railroad dispatcher Vince Coleman learned of the danger from the
burning munitions ship, he started to evacuate. But then he realized
that a passenger train was expected from Saint John, New Brunswick
within minutes. He returned to his post and sent out a telegram: "Stop
trains. Munitions ship on fire. Approaching Pier 6. Goodbye." Not only
did the urgent message stop all incoming trains, it also alerted
railroad officials elsewhere of the situation, enabling them to respond
immediately. Vince Coleman's selfless sacrifice saved not only the three
hundred people on that train but also the train itself, which was used
to transport injured and homeless citizens to the help they desperately
needed. To make matters worse, that night, a massive blizzard buried
Halifax, making it hard for help to reach them and making efforts to
help the injured and homeless even more urgent.

Within hours of
Boston learning that Halifax was demolished, hundreds of volunteers and
critical supplies were on their way by train. And in the days that
followed, Massachusetts residents raised large sums of money for
Halifax.

A year later, in December 1918, Halifax sent a large
Christmas tree to Boston to thank its citizens for their help in the
days immediately after the disaster. In 1971 another large evergreen
tree was sent, and they've continued every year since. The trees, which
are between forty-five and fifty feet in height, come from private land,
but they're selected by the provincial Department of Natural Resources.
Sure, the annual tradition promotes tourism in Canada and trade,
especially tree exports, but more than anything else, it is a poignant
nod to a painful event that happened now nearly a century ago, a gesture
across national borders that speaks of humankind's capacity for
compassion, generosity, and gratitude.